People with quiet, soothing voices pronouce (voiced) D as (unvoiced) T (at the end of words)

6 comments:

If they don't release the terminal consonant with a puff of air, then it becomes harder to hear any difference between, say, "bad" and "bat" (what pair of words were you thinking of?) And that extra puff of air can come across as affected or peremptory.

In many languages, this terminal devoicing has gone from a frequent mannerism to a rule. So in German, "Rad" and "Rat" sound exactly the same, and they get lovely rhymes like

Most people do that. "Voiced" stops at the end of words are distinguished from "voiceless" ones by the shortness of the preceding vowel more often than by actual voicing. This is especially true when word-final stops are unreleased.

Easy on there Bruce. Humour can prove the undoing of one so unaccustomed to displaying it. The old Dame had an almost unique way of enunciating the final 'T' on her sung words. Anybody else would have dropped that 'T' or had it sounding like a 'D'.

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Professor Bruce G Charlton. My latest book is now available online: addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk . Comments are moderated pretty harshly - e.g. I don't publish comments that badmouth me or subvert the blog post (after all, what would be the point of *that*?). Readers are welcome to email me at brucedot charltonat outlookdotcom